In order for LightBeat to synchronize your lights to the music it must listen to some kind of audio input.
By default this will be your systems standard input device, which is usually your microphone.
While this is a suitable option it requires you to listen to your music loudly enough over speakers
and it will make the visualization generally less precise due to noise and signal loss. If you want to listen via headphones you
must use either a stereo mix device as source, or if that is not an option a virtual audio cable, to read audio from any type of
application (YouTube, Spotify, Soundcloud, etc.).
Windows Instructions
Step 1: Check your System for a "Stereo Mix" device
Unfortunately Stereo Mix (sometimes called "Wave" or "Stereomix") is not available for all sound cards.
If you do not see it you might however just have to enable it first. In order to do so, right click your
speaker icon in your systems tray bar and press on "Recording devices". If you can't see this option, open the start menu,
type "Sound", hit enter and select the Recording tab on top. Right click any device in this window and
enable "Show Disabled Devices". If you now see a disabled stereo mix device, simply right click it and press "Enable".
Restart LightBeat and select it as your audio source.
If it doesn't show up you might have to first install or update your audio drivers, or try the next step
to alternatively install a virtual audio cable.
Step 2:If you do not have Stereo Mix, install a (free) virtual audio cable
We will use the free VB-Audio Virtual Cable,
however you can use whichever you prefer. This particular one is free for one virtual device, which is all we need.
Just press the "Download" button on the linked
page and unzip the downloaded file. Right click the file "VBCABLE_Setup_x64.exe" and press "Run as administrator". If it shows you an
error message try "VBCABLE_Setup.exe" instead. Now just click through the installer. If it asks
you for permissions to install allow it, as it has to install a custom driver to your system.
Step 3: Set your virtual cable up
After installation and a potential reboot, open up the Sound window from step 1 again, but this time click on the "Playback" tab on top.
Right click on the now installed device "CABLE Input" and select "Set as Default Device".
Now select the "Recording" tab on the top of the window next to "Playback" and double click "CABLE Output".
Press on the "Listen" tab, tick the "Listen to this device" box and in the list below, select your actual speakers. That's it.
Now you only need to select "CABLE Output" as audio source in LightBeat and you should be good to go. To go back
to your default settings, simply right click your speakers in the "Playback" tab and set them as default device again.
If you are on Windows 10 you can left click on the speaker icon and directly select your default speakers there to easily toggle between them.
MacOS Instructions
You can use the free and open source software BlackHole, follow it's (simple)
install instructions and
learn how to set it up.
After configuration, restart LightBeat and select the BlackHole device as your audio source.
